DALLAS, Texas.--Each
year 20 million Americans are affected by kidney and urological diseases, while
150,000 develop acute kidney failure. The current treatment for kidney failure
is dialysis, a sometimes painful and always costly stop-gap measure that is not
a cure, or kidney transplant.

Dr. Robert Star, a UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas researcher,
has been awarded $40,000 per year for the next three years to study a drug that
has reversed the onset of acute kidney failure in animals.

"With the mortality rate being anywhere from 25 percent to 50 percent
for individuals who develop acute renal failure, new methods for detecting,
preventing and treating acute renal failure must be sought," said Star,
associate professor of internal medicine.

The National Kidney Foundation estimates there are 53,000 Americans
waiting for life- saving transplants, and 10 people die each day while waiting.
Star's research involving the drug alpha-MSH could reduce the disparity of organ
allocation in this country that results in unnecessary deaths. "We have found
that alpha-MSH treatment significantly reduced renal damage and inhibited the
disease at a number of different steps even in transplanted kidneys," Star said.

"This means that a less-than-perfect kidney could be transplanted. It
could help increase the number of available kidneys, which would reduce the
waiting list for recipients considerably," Star said.

Phase I of the study, funded by the Baxter Extramural Grant Program,
will evaluate the drug in four groups of people: dialysis patients,
kidney-transplant patients, patients that already have acute renal failure and
people without kidney damage.

Star also has developed a new way of testing kidney function. The
conventional method can take up to three hours but is not practical for patients
with acute kidney failure, which can
strike within days or even hours.

(Date:3/3/2015)... US Air Purifiers LLC , an ... is pleased to announce that all Rabbit brand air purifiers ... to the west coast port strikes. This news comes just ... , The port strikes, which have caused ... quarter economic growth by as much as 1%, have hindered ...

(Date:3/3/2015)... Rhinebeck, NY (PRWEB) March 03, 2015 Topical ... held as a webinar streamed live on Tuesday, March 10th, ... workshops will be archived and accessible 24/7. ... the public. The topic for the March 10th workshop is ... timely discussion, considering that the U.S. represents 5% of the ...

(Date:3/3/2015)... 03, 2015 The combinatorial, multi-gene ... antidepressant treatment outcomes for patients with depression, and ... of the individual genes that comprise the test, ... the Mayo Clinic and Assurex Health, and published ... The proprietary technology of the GeneSight Psychotropic test ...

(Date:3/3/2015)... In a segment that aired Monday, March ... Vedantam shared research from the Wharton School ... hand-hygiene compliance that occurs over the course of a healthcare ... in part by alerts on healthcare workers’ badges that remind ... a patient’s room. , “Over the course of a ...

(Date:3/3/2015)... , Mar. 03, 2015 Research and Markets ... addition of the "Telemedicine and Mobile Healthcare ... 2015 - 2020" report to their offering. ... Health are all terms that pertain to the ... to provide remote clinical/non-clinical healthcare services. They form ...

(Date:3/3/2015)... -- Cyberonics, Inc. (NASDAQ: CYBX ), a global ... of epilepsy, today announced it will participate in the ... in Miami . ... will speak at 1:05 PM Eastern Time. The session ... no formal materials will be presented. A live audio ...

(Date:3/3/2015)... , March 3, 2015 Today, the ... sponsored by America,s biopharmaceutical research companies, unveiled a ... functionality to provide patients and caregivers with faster, ... public and private patient assistance programs. ... provided a platform to engage, educate and empower ...